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From: brad@looking.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: N.B. Elections
Message-ID: <1051@looking.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 17-Oct-87 22:53:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.1051
Posted: Sat Oct 17 22:53:42 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Oct-87 13:26:36 EDT
References: <1168@water.waterloo.edu> <1665@ubc-cs.UUCP> <1010@utflis.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Distribution: can
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 54

This demonstrates the problem with the idea of representative democracy.
While the popular vote total for the NB Liberals (and the Federal Tories)
was quite high, it doesn't justify a "packed house" as you might say.

I think the NP Grit PV was around 65%, which is to say that 35% of the
population voted against the government, something the house doesn't show.

There's a strong case that any group that gets even a few percent of the
vote (Libertarians, Greens, Rhinoserous etc.) deserves *some* voice in
parliament.   That a group with 35% gets no voice is silly.

The representative system (as opposed to dividing the house by P.V.)
eliminates minor voices, and causes MPs to overstress local issues to
the point that they will support a local pork barrel to the detriment of
the nation.  It also means, if you elect an opposition MP, that many
riding's interests don't get brought up at government caucus meetings.

On the other hand, the concept of having somebody who is *your*
representative is very valuable.  It's important that you have an
identifiable individual to whom you can bring political matters.
We would feel even more distant from the government otherwise.

Perhaps a compromise is the answer.  This would involve sweeping
constitutional reform.  The Senate is the obvious place, but unfortunately
the current ideas all talk about making the senate an even MORE regional
body.

I would like a system with two bodies, one representative, regional and
less partisan -- the other partisan, national and divided by popular vote.

(Which should be more powerful?  I'm not sure)

The PV house would be elected.  Any partisan group could stand as a party
in an election.  Those that meet some special criteria (names on a petition?)
would be listed on a special PV ballot that would be the same in all polls.
There would be a write-in space for groups not meeting the criteria.
(The above is soley to keep the ballot simple.)

After the election, PV would be tallied for each group.
Assume a house of 100 members for simplicity.  A group with 35% of the vote
would get to name 35 members to that house, from their own pre-selected
hierarchy.  After all integer portions are taken care of by parties with
1% or greater of the vote, the remaining fractional percentages (and parties
with <1%) would be sorted in order, and remaining seats would be assigned.

It might be worth investigating a division of powers based on policy areas.
For example, foreign policy would be best done by the national, partisan
house, while many regional domestic issues would be done by the
regional house.

There's a lot more to be worked out here, but I think that this would be
better than the proposed EEE Senate.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473